Note: Do not take this seriously, I repeat, do not take this seriously.

Disclaimer: I do not own UDDUP.

Back and forth

Whenever Haruka's unease came upon them about the next night, Mamoru's patience gradually wore thin and the man pretended not to hear her and left her behind. He didn't want her to get involved with whatever business they had when she was in such a state. The geek agreed, but losing the advantage of Haruka's foresight could mean deep trouble.

Then Igawa had this brilliant idea.

After one long night of fighting criminals, he was in the van alone with the swordsman when he tried to tell about what he had in mind.

"Hey, I'm working on an upgrade, 'cause after researching those quantum physics… I had this neat idea..."

Unfortunately Mamoru had stopped listening to him and walked out.

"Oi!!"

Igawa sighed and then headed to his own bedroom.

----------

He smirked as he stared down. The swordsman couldn't escape his fate, being his personal test subject.

"Your eyes are currently linked to Haruka's glasses. This way, her precognition is directly able to aid you in your battles."

Mamoru frowned at his 'partner in crime'. Lately Igawa has trusted the middle scholar's ability over his forged sword skills. To be perfectly honest, it was quite insulting. The geek pretended not to take it to heart, because he really wanted to get this thing done.

"Like I said before, I don't need it."

"Geez, I know you don't want to depend on her! It's just a test. Let's try it once okay?" He blew up, slamming a hand on the table.

"…"

For once, Mamoru opted to remain silent and simply wondered how long it will be before Igawa would turn into a mad scientist. He settled down on the couch and switched the shades as the other ticked in some keys in his computer.

"I'm not seeing anything special…" he muttered.

"That's because you didn't link it yet. Say 'Back to the future'."

Mamoru snorted at the name.

"Back to the future? That's worse than 'Bucket Brigade'. Aren't you infringing on the copyrights?" he said as he smirked.

"Shut the hell up," Igawa twitched an eyebrow before continuing his techno babble, which Mamoru tuned out whenever he did that. He didn't hear his colleague anymore. Suddenly, everything went blank in his head.

-.-

"Dad? What are you doing?"

"Ugh…"

"Are you okay?"

"Who are you..?"

"… uh, dad it's me."

"…"

"Um, we were supposed to practice today…"

"… and you aren't supposed to be here… damn it, where's Igawa?"

"Eh? Who…"

"Igawa. Guy with the cornrows on his head?"

"Eh? Cornrow? I don't know anyone like that…" then a pause, "Mom?! Daddy's saying weird things! I think he hit his head!"

"Shut up brat!"

"My name's Ryou, not brat!" The boy yelled at him as he ran off to the door, "stay here, I'll get mommy."

For some reason he couldn't find his shades on the counter. Ten minutes passed and in that time Mamoru explored the room with his cane – the hidden sword was still there, thankfully. The house was completely unknown to him, which made things very difficult – he had no idea where he was going. Then light footsteps came from behind him – the boy.

"Where are you going?" Ryou asked, "That's the balcony… the living room is on the other side."

"Ah…" Mamoru was extremely displeased to be dependent on the boy, and turned around to follow the boy.

"Um… Mom isn't here, so she can't help you."

"Then how about giving me my shades."

"Mom has them."

"Why would she?!" He wasn't impressed at all.

"She said it was for better if you didn't today."

Mamoru pouted. Whoever that woman was, she knew how to keep a guy like him stuck in the house. Though she didn't know that he had means to break out of the house, despite the lack of vision. He slid the sword out of its sheath and made his way to wherever the window was; the only source of light was easy to spot.

"Dad?"

"Leave me alone!" Mamoru glared as he was about to slash the window to shards.

"That's the television."

Oh shit. A wall television? No wonder it was so small sized.

Mamoru sighed, "If that is the television then why is the sound turned off?"

"I don't know. Mom turned it off before she went away and she closed all of the curtains…"

That woman!!! She knew him too well!

"You should stay here until mom comes back!"

"Don't you think I will. I'm out of here. Stay here and send my regards to your precious mother," Mamoru groaned.

"Then… who's supposed to take care of you?" he hiccupped, "you'll get hit in the head again and then you'll die!"

What kind of imagination did this boy have….?

"For the last time I didn't get hit in the head… little smartass."

The boy started to cry. Mamoru felt a tiny string in the black mass, otherwise known as his heart, being pulled. If there was one thing that made him uncomfortable it was crying children.

Suddenly he noticed someone else had entered the room and ran up to the boy.

"Ryou, what's wrong?"

Ryou's mother? She 'sounded' nice, but Mamoru knew she wasn't at all by the way she pulled out those tricks on him.

"Ah Mamoru…"

Something about her seemed familiar, but he quickly shrugged it off – the most important thing was to get away as soon as possible.

"I didn't like the things you did, but I suppose I don't have any place I can go now."

"I see… you became like this, as expected," she contemplated, and then turned to the man again, "don't worry, it will be over soon."

Mamoru couldn't believe her.

"What's going on? Where is Haruka? Igawa? All the others?"

The woman remained silent, which indicated something must have happened.

"You know what it means, don't you Mamoru?"

"No I don't."

She sighed bitterly.

"This child… You don't remember the name of your friend?"

Then the truth hit him.

"Ryou…" he paused, "… as in Igawa Ryoutarou?"

She nodded and gave him his shades. Not one single thing had changed about that.

Instead of looking at the woman his eyes met the boy. He noticed the cornrows on the boy's head and the familiar glasses.

-.-

Someone was close to him and projected obtrusive light into his left eye.

"Ow! What the hell are you doing?!"

"Oh good you're back to normal," Igawa surmised with a tone of amusement as he took away the light.

"What was that? Is that part of specs too?"

"Not your shades. I'll have you know that the test was a failure."

Damn right he was.

"For one thing, you weren't supposed to pass out and wake up all crazy."

"…all crazy...?"

"Never mind," Igawa gulped, remembering the embrace that he had received when Mamoru had temporarily gone crazy. It was a fatherly hug, completely with tears shed at how big had grown. Awkward was a fitting word here.

"More importantly, what did you see?"

Mamoru's mind went blank for a moment.

"I went 20 years into the future… and I…" He was temporarily at a loss of words. Could this be how Haruka felt whenever she saw the future? Still, this was ridiculous!

"Well?" Igawa leaned in, curious about what he was about to tell.

"I got married to this… woman and there was this… kid…"

"This… woman…? And a kid?" The geek grinned, "Ohoho, could it be that our Ha-"

"But that- that kid was---!!"

When he spoke those words, Igawa wished he'd never heard them.

-----

The morning light was shining in when a person took something away from the night table and immediately ran off. Mamoru shot up instantly from the bed and groped to where his tools were. The cane had been left there, but the thief had taken away the shades.

"What the…"

Whoever pulled off this prank would have his ass beaten up quite badly within a few minutes, he thought, extremely annoyed, forgetting to take the cane. Mamoru made a way to the hangar and at the same time he heard footsteps running into the room. Was that Haruka?

"Mamoru-san! Watch out!" The girl called out.

"Huh?"

Mamoru cried out after bumping his head into the door, "O-ow! That hurts!"

"…I was too late," Haruka said, watching the man pull himself together after a direct hit.

"Never mind that. Is Igawa here?" he said after opening the door to the hangar.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH," There was no need to even ask as they suddenly heard Igawa yelling like a madman.

Haruka suspected their tech man had something like a nightmare. She wasn't sure about that, after all, she couldn't look into people's heads. She faintly remembered Igawa told her he could have very vivid and insanely realistic dreams and as a kid he often couldn't make out the difference between reality and his dreams. This was in response to the topic of precognitive dreams she often had.

"This thing is the evil!" he yelled as he trampled something on the ground with his feet.

Mamoru had a sinking feeling as he heard his colleague going amok, but it couldn't hurt to ask.

"Haruka? What is that thing I'm hearing?"

This time she paled slightly at his question.

"Your shades."